I think my old Jimny is great. I always take it in preference to the 120 if I'm travelling less than 30 miles, I'm not towing, and I don't need to carry any more than a bag of dog food. But the only reason you're going to buy one if you don't need decent off-road ability (and almost no one does) is for the "cheeky looks". I've had a go in a new one, only for a few miles. It's also great. But still feels very basic, rattly and has terrible fuel consumption for a little car. If I needed to replace the one I have it would be top of my list. But I can't help think it's still super niche and there's no market to clean up with it. Dacia has the cheap, useful off road ability market sewn up, it's just we don't really have that market in the UK.
Likewise the old Defender. Even when they were still making them there were fewer and fewer in the livestock market car parks. Jap pickups don't have half the offroad ability, but almost no one uses them seriously offroad. Famers use quad bikes and tractors. The only thing that got any numbers in sales was the 3.5 ton towing ability, and the pickups have finally caught up there too. I think Tata are pretty shrewd in working out what they can make the biggest profit on.